it's surprisingly peaceful so far but there are rumours of agitators being infiltrated

iirc the gendarmerie said the protest is illegal ( here you have to announce the authorities giving them all the details and afaik even require their approval) but so far they aren't doing anything about it.. I guess nobody registered it because there's apparently no leader of the protesters.

The Roșia Montană Project was initiated by Roșia Montană Gold Corporation, a company of which the largest shareholder is the Canada-based Gabriel Resources. The open-pit mining project will use cyanide to extract gold and it is expected to require the razing of three villages and destroy four mountain tops. If approved, it would be Europe's largest open-pit gold mine and it will result in 314 tonnes of gold and 1500 tonnes of silver.

The Romanian government approved a new draft law needed for the Roșia Montană Project in late August 2013 and it forwarded it to the Parliament which had to vote on it in September.

Activists involved in the Roșia Montană campaign claim that the project would cause an environment disaster, that it would destroy the ancient Roman archeological sites and that the project involved handling assets to the Canadian company, while the Romanian state would earn too little out of the project. Another concern was the fact that the legislation would give the Roșia Montană Gold Corporation the right to give compulsory purchase orders to the residents of Roșia Montană who refused to sell their houses and lands.

We'll take care of this thing, then we'll get to fraking and NSA. The main thing is to have people asking for a change... and not pushed by political parties, but by pure will. This is what's exciting about these protests. They're against the status quo. It can go anywhere from here. And I'm hoping it's going right to fraking monsanto.

I mean that as in that's what people think. Very few people are interested enough in politics to care about government spying programs.

Besides I really don't have a problem with the NSA spying, it's their job, governments have been intercepting phone calls for years and the fabled police state has not come around yet. Our democracy is too strong and there are way too many safeguards to prevent that. What I do have a problem with is the lack of oversight and their attempts to mess with encryption.

Besides I really don't have a problem with the NSA spying, it's their job

You can't grant them moral immunity because it's their job. They can go and get another one. Heck, even if they can't, they should still resign. What they're doing is completely immoral and barely even beneficial to us anyway, if it all.

governments have been intercepting phone calls for years

That doesn't justify either accepting it or what you've adopted, that being apathy.

Our democracy is too strong

In the U.S. you seem to just be given a couple of similar puppets to pick from every few years. It's not much better here in England. And the state-sponsored, home-grown propaganda... fuck me.

there are way too many safeguards to prevent that

Such as? Everyone is apathetic, the 1% (for want of a more accurate and fair term) have all the power, hmm...

What I do have a problem with is [...] their attempts to mess with encryption.

None of your points really have merit. I'm not talking about whether it's moral or not just that it's necessary and that is that their job is to gather and analyse intelligence gathered from multiple sources, including the internet.

I'm British, our system isn't perfect but it's pretty good. It leads to stable governments that can actually do something, something proportional representation struggles to do. Besides most political analysts believe that in the next few years at least we will have coalition governments, the rise of UKIP, a new party shows that people can and will vote for different parties.

How strong is your country on the freedom of the press? You have interesting laws about journalism. Perhaps transparency shouldn't involve journalists or whistleblowers, for your protection.

Is censorship a threat to democracy? Or is censoring extremist views a part of that? Maybe we should be spying on protestors? Was you recent reform over libel laws a step forward or backwards? Perhaps some embarrassing material is worthy of censorship?

How fair are your courts? Does forgetting a password, as some people delete encrypted content-which can be retrieved,justify years in prison?

Perhaps your government also protects you from dangerous children on twitter.

Given that's what I see, I'm curious to know what your reaction is to these points? Is democracy merely your right to vote?

Sure, if you take into account the relatively low turnout when the austerity measures were announced, this IS huge. The problem is the political class is probably still sitting comfortably, laughing at all the people in the streets, thinking that the protests will never gain enough momentum to actually change anything. It would probably take something like 2-3 times more people in the streets to actually have them concerned.

Romanians, I'm coming to Bucharest in October 15th for a seminar on democracy. Are these riots large and violent, and how long do you think they will last? With all due respect, but I don't want to go to a country crippled by rioting.

We're all shooting one another. Countless cars and buildings have been utterly destroyed by the easily accessible rocket launchers. The situation is desperate, even the main news station has been assaulted and most of the people there brutally murdered.
I wouldn't come here unless I was sitting in a tank.